IRA victims could sue Tony Blair over alleged Libyan Semtex deal

Firemen help clear the scene of devastation after the 1987 IRA poppy day explosion in Enniskillen.

Tony Blair could be sued by IRA victims over allegations he helped Colonel Gaddafi avoid paying compensation for Libyan-backed atrocities.

Lawyers acting for around 200 people claim the former prime minister and government officials “connived” with the Libyan leader to block payments which would have compensated UK victims for Semtex-inflicted injuries.

During the Troubles, Col Gaddafi supplied a significant amount of weapons and Semtex explosive to the IRA.

The dictator, who was deposed and killed by anti-government rebels in 2011, settled a $1.5 billion claim with US victims of Libyan-sponsored terrorism, but the new regime in the north African state has so far failed to give any compensation to victims from the UK. The lawyers have claimed Mr Blair assisted Gaddafi in killing off the UK victims’ class action for damages in a “scandalous and perverse” move.

In an email obtained by the Sunday Telegraph, former UK ambassador to Libya Sir Vincent Fean appears to suggest a deal between Blair and Gaddafi that secured the US payouts, while ending hopes of a resolution in the UK.

The email suggests the former PM helped to broker an agreement between Col Gaddafi and the then US President George W Bush.

The lawyers are also demanding to know whether Sir Vincent “misled” MPs and peers over government involvement in the case.

Jason McCue of McCue & Partners, which is representing around 200 British victims of IRA Semtex attacks, said the disclosure could form the basis for legal action in the UK.

“It’s bad enough being a victim of Semtex bombs supplied by Libya for the Provisional IRA campaign. [But] it’s sheer horror then to be informed that the British government and Tony Blair may have connived with Gaddafi to ensure the few brave British victims that justly sued and stood up to the dictator received no compensation from the Libyans,” he said.

The email in question was written by Sir Vincent to Mr Blair’s aides in June 2008 – two days before a meeting between the former prime minister and Col Gaddafi in Libya.

The note described how Mr Blair had approached President Bush on Gaddafi’s behalf following an American court ruling that the proceeds of Libyan business deals could be seized to compensate victims of a Libyan terrorist attack.

Sir Vincent wrote: “On USA/Libya, TB should explain what he said to President Bush ... to keep his promise to Col Q [Gaddafi] to intervene after the President allowed US courts to attach Libyan assets.”

However, a spokeswoman for Mr Blair said there was no evidence to suggest the former prime minister had intervened in the compensation case.

“This persistent attempt, backed by no evidence whatever, to suggest that Tony Blair ‘interfered’ with the terms of compensation is malicious and wrong,” she said.

“He has never had anything to do with it and he has never discussed any such terms with President Bush.

“The email you reference merely expresses government policy of the time which was to re-engage with the Libyans after they gave up their WMD programme and chose to cooperate rather than sponsor terrorism.”

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The government believes compensation claims are best pursued directly with the Libyan government through private campaigns.

“The claim that government officials took any deliberate action that denied other UK victims compensation in the 2008 settlement is wrong.”

Enniskillen poppy day bomb survivor Stephen Gault has called the failure of the UK government to secure compensation from Libya a “betrayal”.

Mr Gault, whose father Samuel was one of 12 people who died as a result of the 1987 atrocity, described it as one of the “world’s worst Libyan-sponsored Semtex IRA atrocities”.

He said: “Innocent victims and survivors of terrorism are quite appalled at the treatment which they are receiving by their own government. Dozens of people were murdered here and hundreds of others injured, physically and psychologically, as a consequence of the apparatus of terrorism being provided by the Libyan regime.

“It is an absolute betrayal of my father’s memory, and the memory of hundreds of others, that the UK government is not prepared to act as our defenders in our quest to secure compensation.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Belfast Newsletter provides news, events and sport features from the Belfast area. For the best up to date information relating to Belfast and the surrounding areas visit us at Belfast Newsletter regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Belfast Newsletter requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.